Desaturated Santa costume only works when there are lots of other red Santas for contrast. Otherwise you just look sort of weird and sickly due to the gray body paint, and it’s not immediately obvious what you’re up to. It also doesn’t look as striking at night under artificial light, even with other Santas around.

Desaturated Santa is for daytime SantaCon, in my opinion. It’s way too much time, money and energy to put into without having a lot of other Santas for visual contrast.